Rivian CEO has encouraging words about EV production, expanding into Europe
Following a big second quarter, Rivian’s CEO and founder, RJ Scaringe, believes the best is yet to come. Scaringe says Rivian’s supply chain is coming together, allowing for more predictability regarding production.
Rivian hits a turning point in Q2 EV production
Rivian hit a “turning point” in the second quarter, crushing estimates by delivering 12,640 and producing nearly 14,000 electric vehicles.
After a slow start to the year, building 9,395 EVs in the first quarter, Rivian said it was as expected due to revamping its electric delivery van (EDV) assembly line to accommodate its new in-house Enduro drive units and LFP battery packs.
Rivian said the move would help boost EV output throughout the year with simplified production and operational efficiency.
The EV maker reaffirmed that it’s on track to deliver on its 50,000 annual production guidance, up from just short of 25,000 last year.
Speaking with BloombergTV, Scaringe explained the complexity behind launching three different products simultaneously (R1T, R1S, and EDV). Launching and scaling one production is challenging, but launching three is extremely complicated.
As a result, Rivian “felt it last year” with parts shortages and other unforeseen hurdles, but as Scaringe describes, “what we saw in Q2 was the beginnings of the supply chain really running in a healthy way.”
Scaringe gave an example for the first time during a board meeting where its supply chain slide had no red on it. He says the supply chain is “healthy” and keeping up with production.
With newfound visibility over its supply chain, Rivian is running its manufacturing facility in Normal, Illinois, “as intended.” Having this supply chain confidence, Rivian says, makes it easier to predict production abilities.
Knowing “all the unknowns” that still exist, Rivian is sticking to its 50K production goal rather than overpromising results.
Rivian’s CFO Claire McDonough explained during an interview with Deutsche Bank last month that the EV maker would prioritize R1S production through the second half of the year after seeing a “robust backlog of preorders that extends into 2024.”
Rivian EDVs expand into Europe with Amazon
In an exciting milestone, Rivian’s EDVs are beginning to roll out across Europe in collaboration with Amazon. The electric vans are specifically designed for city travel across Europe, with a shorter, thinner design than the US version.
The first 300 are set to hit the streets of Munich, Berlin, and Dusseldorf in the coming weeks. Amazon says hitting its goal of having 100,000 electric delivery vans deployed globally will help cut millions of metric tons of carbon per year.
Scaringe says introducing its EDVs in Europe is “the beginning of opening up the European market for our products” with highly predictable plant service and delivery intervals.
Rivian stock is up over 40% this past month following the positive momentum, but shares are still down over 80% from their all-time highs after going public in November 2021.
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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